I’ve spent 1000s of hours playing Pokémon.
My parents got me a Game Boy when I was 8 years old. All of my elementary school breaks afterwards were spent playing the game. I regularly attended the local Pokémon trading card game league. I’ve watched all the movies. Even the ones that never made it to Germany (where I was born and raised). I’ve walked dozens of kilometers with my phone in hand this year. Even now, I still occasionally play the card game online.
This franchise has been with me for 17 of the 25 years that I’m alive, so naturally I care about its future.
I think this questions contains many sub-questions, which, if answered in order, can be pieced back together to a proper answer.
Step 1: Define long-lasting.
In the end, nothing lasts forever. Things aren’t meant to. It’s not uncommon for a 27-year old girl today to not know the names of the Beatles (John, Paul, George and Ringo, there you go).
How long does Nintendo want Pokémon to last?
50 years? 100? 2,000? Why? What can the franchise achieve in another 50 years? Or 500? What’s the vision and what’s the real mission of Pikachu and his friends?
Of course these should be answered in a dialogue with the other share- and stakeholders of the Pokémon franchise—after all, Nintendo only owns roughly one third of it all.
Step 2: Define success for the franchise.
I’m sure Nintendo’s goal isn’t to prolong the life of the franchise for the sake of prolonging it alone. And while financial success is of course a desired goal, it’s also a natural result of a company aligning its behaviors with the mission it has dedicated itself to.
What would make Nintendo consider the Pokémon franchise a success after it has ended?
This should include, but not be limited to, a few financial numbers. Other good figures to look at are:
- Number of people positively impacted by playing the games, because they had fun, reduced stress and found an outlet for their creativity where they could spend some time free of the judgment of others.
- Number of things created and amount of money made by people who used Pokémon as a springboard and built on top of it, for example by drawing pictures, creating songs, building companies, etc. that related to the franchise.
- Ratio of people who told other people about Pokémon after getting in contact with the franchise.
I think the goal here is to build for a legacy that keeps on growing long after the dust has settled. Winston Churchill keeps getting more popular, even though he died over 50 years ago.
Step 3: Plot a path of action that is most likely to move the company towards this definition of success.
Now that Nintendo knows exactly what it wants its legacy with Pokémon to look like, it can start taking action towards it.
Depending on how long the franchise should last, that will mean enabling and empowering not just current employees, but also future generations to answer the following questions:
- What project would make/keep the Pokémon franchise remarkable, i.e. for people who come in touch with to make a remark about it to others?
- Is this a project that has a decent chance of failing? Because if not, it means Nintendo isn’t going out on a limb and trying something new.
- How can Pokémon keep bringing people together around a shared cause?
- Are we making this community feel more respected than before? Do we give them a place where they can feel at home in a way they can’t elsewhere?
If Nintendo can get these questions to seep into its company culture in a way that they keep being asked again and again and again, I’m sure it will succeed.
Whatever Pikachu is up to next 🙂
Thanks for creating this wonderful world. It made my life better. I still tell friends about it.
This answer is based on my personal experience with the game of over 15 years, the strategic process for multi-national enterprises I learned about in my first grad school class and Seth Godin’s definition of being remarkable.